


Duality

by cheshirecrime (orphan_account)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Academy era parallels, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I try and process my own childhood through two background characters, Osgood is jewish, Spoilers for Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, dumbass genius kids, pre-master o
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cheshirecrime
Summary: "This isn’t just my story. As most of my life has ended up being, this is the story of two. Before my work at UNIT, before my twin, before I met the doctor, I had a best friend by the name of Orpheus Masters."Only I could make myself feel a lot of things about a character who has never actually appeared and has only ever been mentioned. So I figured I would make you all have a lot of feelings about O too.
Kudos: 4





	Duality

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic so I don't know how often I'll update it, but I'll try my best!

Aliens don’t exist. At least, legally they don’t, and it’s my job- one of my many jobs- to ensure they stay that way. I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. Closure, maybe? God knows it’ll never be published. Even if it wasn’t against most of the contracts I’ve signed in my life, I’m sure no one would want to read it anyway. The childhood adventures of an asthmatic science nerd aren’t exactly riveting literature. I guess I’m just trying to make sense of all of this. Not the aliens or anything- I’ve had a pretty solid grasp on that my whole life. Maybe I just miss him. Maybe I want to torture myself with obsessing over why he isn’t here anymore. Maybe I need something to do other than watch that security footage over and over again.  
This isn’t just my story. As most of my life has ended up being, this is the story of two. Before my work at UNIT, before my twin, before I met the doctor, I had a best friend by the name of Orpheus Masters.  
Petronella Osgood and Orpheus Masters were lonely children, but they were lonely together. We were lonely together. We lived in our own little world, our two houses sitting at the top of a hill, isolated from the rest of town. I don’t remember meeting him. He was just always there, challenging me and helping me. His parents tell me that we each learned how to read because we wanted to beat the other to it. My earliest memories- exploring the woods behind his house, playing pretend in my living room, birthdays and holidays and Hannukahs and Christmases- all involved him. Our families rhymed. His parents worked for Torchwood. My uncle and father worked for UNIT. While other children grew up with stories of superheroes and princesses, we grew up with tales of the doctor. Our first toys were handmade miniature police boxes. We used to race to the top of the hill on the way home from school for which of us would get to pretend to be the doctor and which would be their companion. That’s how we found out about my asthma. When we started to understand the doctor’s regenerations, we realized we could both be the doctor. That about sums up us for the first 17 years of our lives; doing what we could to be the doctor, and hopefully helping the other be more like them too.  
At school, we didn’t have many other friends. It bothered him a lot more than it bothered me. I kept my head down. I was always much more interested in whatever science concept had captured my attention at that moment than what my classmates were doing, especially when those classmates decided my eccentricities made me below them. It infuriated Orpheus. After a particularly nasty bullying incident he told me that it was a moral outrage that not more people wanted to be friends with Petronella Hadassah Osgood and he would talk sense into every single one of them if he had to. He didn’t seem to have much trouble making friends himself. It was everyone else who had trouble being friends with him. He always wanted to learn the story of everyone he met, and wouldn’t leave you alone until he did. He always saw something extraordinary in everyone. He gave out detailed, personalized valentines to each and every person in class on valentine’s day for years. The only people he stopped trying to be friends with were people who were mean to me. Unfortunately, this meant most of our classmates fell out of favor with him by the time we were 10. I’m not sure he knew what to do with himself without having strong opinions about everyone he knew, wether that was love or hatred.  
Orpheus Masters may have been a good man. I’m not sure I’d know what that would look like if I saw it. But I know who he was, and the man I saw on the security tape of that airplane was not him. He said it himself- “O” is long dead. I saw Orpheus’s body. The master tossed it aside without a second thought. I’m used to seeing vile acts committed by faces I love. I’ve seen the face of Kate Stewart command an invasion of earth. I’ve seen the doctor kill. I’ve seen my own face staring back at me in the face of global catastrophe. This shouldn’t be any different, and yet it is. Maybe I’ve seen Orpheus act that cruelly too many times. Maybe I hadn’t seen him in so long that any sight of him would hurt me no matter what. I guess that’s why I’m writing these. I want to remember who he was, or even learn who he was in the first place. I want to be able to see his face again without seeing that madman on the plane. I just want to see my friend again. I’d do anything to.


End file.
